This invention relates to a pneumatic tube carrier of the type which may be used to carry objects, such as mail and newspapers from outside to inside a building. The particular embodiment disclosed in this application relates to a system designed to function in a residential environment. The outside terminal serves as a mailbox and in the disclosure below is operated manually by the postman in much the same way a regular mailbox would be operated. The inside terminal is designed to be operated automatically or semiautomatically.
Pneumatic carrier systems are known in the prior art and have heretofore been used primarily in banks and savings and loans to permit transactions to take place between a customer--usually in a car--and an employee of the bank or savings and loan stationed inside the building. Such systems are manual in the sense that the transaction takes place by the customer removing a carrier from a terminal and manually opening it, placing money, checks or the like in the carrier, closing the carrier, placing the carrier back in the terminal and activating the system by closing a door, pushing a button, etc. The carrier travels through a pneumatic tube to the employee who removes the carrier from the inside terminal, manually opens the carrier, removes the contents, carries out the desired transaction, places documentation such as a deposit slip or other contents in the carrier, closes the carrier, places the carrier back in the inside terminal, and activates the system, sending the carrier back to the customer, who carries out the same steps all over again to remove the items from the carrier. This system requires a person on both ends who must carry out a series of steps in the correct order for the system to work properly.
This type of system is suitable only for fully attended use, as described above. Such a system is completely impractical for use in a residential environment since the occupant of the residence and the postman or newspaper carrier would seldom, if ever, be at opposite ends of the system at the same time. In addition, the manual systems currently in use cannot be used for unattended automatic or semiautomatic use in financial institutions after regular business hours or when an attendant is not needed as a part of a transaction, i.e., making a deposit.
A manual system is also not practical for other commercial or for industrial because a person must be almost constantly in attendance at one or both ends to remove contents and dispatch the carrier. An automatic system would be an ideal manner of transmitting plans, drawings and even manufacturing parts and supplies from one part of a large industrial area to another.
A number of problems have heretofore prevented development of a practical automatic pneumatic carrier system. These include the need for a carrier which will travel in any direction in the system and yet be capable of being manually loaded and manually or automatically unloaded, the need for a system with means for accumulating contents unloaded over a period of time and the need for a system which requires only one blower located remote from the terminals and yet capable of an efficient "push-pull" type of transport action. These problems are solved in the invention described below. The resulting system has application in an number of different fields, including financial, residential, commercial and industrial.